Finnish breaststroker William Wihanto has announced he is transferring from the University of Arizona to the University of California, San Diego for his final year of eligibility.

“I’m proud and honored to announce my verbal commitment to UC San Diego to continue my collegiate career, beginning fall 2018! I want to thank everyone at UA for the great times we had, and am thankful for having had the opportunity to be a part of it all. I am excited and now looking forward to continuing my journey at UC San Diego as a Triton. Go Tritons!”

Wihanto was born and raised in Finland. He was chosen by the Finnish Olympic Committee to be part of a project called “Team Tokio 2020” aimed at supporting athletes striving to compete in Tokyo in 2020. At Arizona, he red-shirted his first year of collegiate swimming. He finished second in the 100 breast at the 2017 Texas invitational and ranks 7th on Arizona’s all-time top-10 list in the event.

Top times:

100 SCY breast – 52.82

100 LCM breast – 1:02.27

200 SCY breast – 2:01.09

50 SCY free – 20.80

Wihanto would have won the 100 breast by 1.7 seconds and come within .04 of the conference record had he gone his best time at the 2018 Pacific Collegiate Swim Conference Championships in February. He would have placed second in the 200 breast, giving the Tritons a 1st-through-4th-place sweep in the event. He also would have been a A-finalist in the 50 free.

If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].

About Anne Lepesant

Anne Lepesant is the mother of four daughters, all of whom swim/swam in college. With an undergraduate degree from Princeton (where she was an all-Ivy tennis player) and an MBA from INSEAD, she worked for many years in the financial industry, both in France and the U.S. Anne is currently …